Moses Harman : free thought, free love, and eugenics in the Midwest, 1880-1910

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea M. Weingartner
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Per Faxneld

Chapter 7 discusses Decadence as a highly visible counter-discourse, which popularized tactics of counter-reading. Félicen Rops’s enthusiastically debauched engravings and paintings of Satanic women are examined. Next, J.-K. Huysmans’s novel Là-bas (1891) is considered, especially the female Satanist Mme Chantelouve who is portrayed in it. She is a self-governing woman with modern ideas about free love and described as hysterical. Hysteria carried connotations of feminism, and the independent Chantelouve can be seen as a caustic caricature of an emancipated New Woman. Certain bohemian females were undaunted and approached her as an object of identification. Finally, Stanislaw Przybyszewski’s highly ambivalent attitude towards the demonic feminine is read in view of his œuvre at large, which makes it difficult to understand his at times quite ghastly descriptions of female Satanists as a simple condemnation. At times unwittingly, Decadents contributed to a destabilization of gendered categories and ideals.


Author(s):  
P. C. Kemeny

The Watch and Ward Society was very effective at enforcing Protestant mores, especially through lobbying efforts and work as an extralegal police force that strove to enforce the state’s anti-obscenity laws. The anti-vice society employed three closely related strategies to combat the arguments of free love and free speech activists and to suppress the sale of obscene material. First, reformers lobbied state legislatures to pass more effective anti-obscenity statutes. Second, they demanded that the police enforce the laws, and they investigated book and magazine vendors to aid the police in their work. Finally, they pressured publishers and bookstore owners to refrain from selling objectionable materials. Examining the controversy over the publication of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass in 1882–83 illustrates the organization’s effectiveness.


Author(s):  
Stefan Schröder

This chapter addresses secular humanism in Europe and the way it is “lived” by and within its major institutions and organizations. It examines how national and international secular humanist bodies founded after World War II took up, cultivated, and transformed free-religious, free-thought, ethical, atheist, and rationalist roots from nineteenth century Europe and adjusted them to changing social, cultural, and political environments. Giving examples from some selected national contexts, the development of a nonreligious Humanism in Europe exemplifies what Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt call “Multiple Secularities”: different local or national trajectories produced a variety of cultures of secularity and, thus, different understandings of secular humanism. Apart from this cultural historization, the chapter reconstructs two transnational, ideal types of secular humanism, the social practice type, and the secularist pressure group type. These types share similar worldviews and values, but have to be distinguished in terms of organizational forms, practices, and especially policy.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Pedragosa ◽  
Rui Biscaia ◽  
Abel Correia

Previous studies have suggested that consumption-related emotions are important to understand post-purchase reactions. This study examines the relationship between fitness consumers' emotions and overall satisfaction. After an initial step of free-thought listing and content validity, followed by a pre-test, a survey was conducted among consumers of five different fitness centers (n=786). The questionnaire included measures to assess positive and negative emotions, as well as overall satisfaction with the fitness center. The results gathered through a structural equation model provide evidence that negative emotion experienced by consumers impacts negatively overall satisfaction, while positive emotion have a positive effect on overall satisfaction. These findings suggest managerial implications, such as the need to collect consumers' perceptions of both tangible and intangible aspects of the services, listen costumers' opinions in a regular basis, and provide regular training to staff members, in order to identify the triggers of positive emotions and contribute to increased levels of overall satisfaction. Guidelines for future research within the fitness context are also suggested.


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